October 13, 2009

I am so excited.
I am going to take my oldest daughter to the bank and help her open her first savings account!
She’s ten now, having recently celebrated her birthday, and she has some birthday-checks to cash. One of our local banks offers a no-fee, no-minimum balance required savings account for children under 16. This type of account will be perfect for my daughter.
Over the past few years, my […]

The 12 month 0% interest balance transfer credit card is back!
So much has changed over the past few years in the credit card industry, what with new regulations, the disappearance of easy credit, the reduction of credit card offers and advertisements through the mail, and not to mention, the expiration of long term and lifetime balance transfer programs (and awesome card terms). […]

In a few short months, you’re probably going to give yourself a money-related New Year’s Resolution that will last all of about two or three weeks. It might be to save more money or spend less. It might be to start keeping a budget or invest more in the stock market. Whatever it is, the odds of you keeping your resolution past a few weeks is really small because that’s how resolutions are. […]

Whenever I mention that I’m self-employed and work from home while my wife works outside of the home, I usually receive a question or two from readers who are thinking about a similar arrangement. They want to know about how we balance things. How do you balance household chores? How do you balance parenting chores? […]

Here's an email I recently received from a reader:
I am married with a 4 year old daughter and a 6 month old son. I will be turning 29 next week. For 28.5 of those years, I was a complete spendthrift with the attitude of "why make money if you can't spend it." Today, I can give you roughly 29,250 reasons why (that's not even counting student loans!). […]

A couple weeks ago I received a letter from my former employer’s 401(k) benefits company notifying me that I had $0.83 in my 401(k) account. Despite my best efforts avoid dividends and distributions on funds, I must have missed one in the process. […]

Last Thursday, Jeff offered his final article for Consumerism Commentary, Learning and Saving. Jeff was a solid contributor, and I’m sorry to report that Jeff won’t be contributing regularly due to his other obligations. […]

Every year I make my ritual visit to my local dentist for a routine cleaning, and every year I get the “you should really be using mouth-wash” speech. And every year I get sent home with my bag of dental goodies, including a little bottle of Crest mouthwash.
OK, I get it.
Mouth-wash is an important part of my teeth-cleaning-routine. […]

By Xin Lu Clothing swap parties have become popular in recent years as frugal and fashion conscious men and women find that trading clothes is a great way to update a wardrobe for next to nothing. For those of you who are not into attending or organizing these parties, it is possible to trade your gently used clothes from the comfort of your home. […]

By Linsey Knerl **** Congrats to our winners!***
Comment #20 Luke - Gift cards are great for those cousins / relatives who seem to have everything they could possibly need / want... A big one is teens since they are constantly changing there minds on whats cool and hip. […]

Here is a story about friends of ours (no, they don't read this blog and neither does anyone that knows them). It's a combination of bad luck, terrible timing, an historic market drop, and poor decisions. Here are the details:
We had friends from our neighborhood that lived a modest lifestyle similar to ours. […]

I’ve written many, many times about how relevatory keeping a “thought notebook” in my pocket has been for me. Whenever I have a stray thought that might be useful at all to remember later, I jot it down in the notebook and then review it later, usually a couple of reviews a day.
Figuring this out has truly been world-changing to me. […]

By Adam Baker Social Media is going through an unprecedented explosion in popularity right now. Don't believe me? See for yourself. There are no signs this trend is going to slow anytime soon.
But this huge surge in popularity also makes the various social media networks a prime target for scams. […]

By Philip Brewer I pay almost no attention to "deals" sites. I scarcely even read the lists of deals here on Wise Bread. There are several reasons, but they pretty much come down to two things: I don't have the time, or the money, to pay attention to deals.
In the abstract, deals are great. And, of course, actual concrete deals that you can use are even better. […]

Yesterday, I argued that the most effective path to financial success is to boost your income. Frugality is an important part of personal finance, and you will eventually meet your goals if you simply cut your spending, but it might take you a very long time. Maybe even decades. […]

I just graduated a “Level One” (read: newbie) improv class. At first, I signed up for the class because I can think of few thing scarier than getting on stage with no script. I’m not known for thinking on my feet, I don’t “BS” well, and even when I know my lines, I get terrible stage fright.
So I made myself go to this class as soon as I knew I’d have eight free weekends in a row. […]

GE Miller writes 20 Something Finance, a personal finance blog that is geared towards the twenty-something crowd, and Microfrugality, a new site on lowering your expenses and living the frugal lifestyle. As a twenty-something myself, I stumbled onto 20 Something Finance a few months ago and have been quietly lurking in the background as posts were delivered to my RSS reader. […]

Big news this week… We went ahead and locked in our mortgage interest rate. My husband called the lender on Wednesday, and we’ve since faxed back the agreement. We’re locking in our 30 year fixed rate mortgage at a 5% interest rate with a 1.017% origination fee.
To be honest, I’ve been anxiously watching our lender’s site and counting the days until our closing date. […]

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Bargaineering is a blog that chronicles my personal finance life and where I discuss matters of shopping, insurance, investing, retirement, loans, credit cards, mortgages, bargain hunting and other issues in my life.